The Walking People (49 page)

"They just broke?" Eavan asked.

"Yep, just broke. Don't change the subject."

Eavan looked at James. "Let's just tell her."

"No! Are you crazy?" James pushed away from the table. "Nice, Eavan. Nice going."

Greta looked back and forth between them as they glared at each other. Eavan, the middle child. Her sensible, dependable girl. James, her unshaven, bed-headed boy. Julia, the oldest, the absentee daughter, the workaholic, the one who called in the middle of the night not realizing the time.

"That's enough," Greta said, putting on her most serious expression. "What's going on?"

"Okay, well, we wanted it to be a surprise—" Eavan began.

"Eavan, you are such a pain in the ass," James interrupted.

"Easy now," Greta said, taking hold of James's wrist.

"Well, this is crazy, James. It's too much. We shouldn't have done it."

"Done what?" Greta asked. They ignored her.

"Something like this"—Eavan pleaded with her brother—"it's not the surprise that's the big deal. It shouldn't be a surprise. Plus—"

"Plus what?" James demanded.

"It's not our business, really. I was talking to Gary last night, and he agrees. It's not really our business."

"I'm going to kill you. I'm serious," James said.

"James, your sister is expecting a child."

"I think we should tell her, and if she thinks it's a bad idea, we'll
cancel the whole thing." Eavan turned to Greta. "I don't know if we can cancel, really, but we'll figure something out. We'll handle it. Well, Julia will have to handle it I guess. At this point"—Eavan looked at her watch—"she's the only one who can handle it."

As Greta waited for her daughter's long preamble to end, as she looked back and forth between her children's flushed faces and the excitement that played in the air between them, she decided two things. First, whatever it was, they'd taken a big chance. It was something they'd thought about for a long time, argued about, probably decided on and re-decided a number of times before going through with it. Second, they were afraid.

"Spit it out, girl," Greta said. "I never heard such a speech in all my life."

"Seriously," James said.

"You shut up," Eavan said to James. "This was your big idea. It's your head if they hate it. Not mine."

"And if they love it," James pointed out.

"The Lord save us," Greta said. "Will someone just tell me what it is?"

Eavan got up and walked across the kitchen to where she left her purse. She drew out a long envelope. Even from across the room, even wearing glasses she was no longer used to, Greta could make out the airmail stamp on the upper-right-hand corner. She recognized the Irish postmark.

"What's that?" Greta asked, looking at the envelope as if she'd never seen one before.

"It's a letter," Eavan said, placing it on the table. Greta crossed her arms and leaned over to inspect it. She peered at it as if it were a specimen in a cage. She pushed her glasses up on her nose and leaned closer. Everything in her body, every nerve, every vein, every ounce of blood felt in that moment like it began and ended in the pit of her stomach. It's not what I think it is, Greta thought. Silly woman—now their nerves have gone and rubbed off on me. It's not what I think it is, because there's no way they would be that brazen. Had they found out somehow? Done an investigation behind my back? No. Not possible, not after all these years. It was the first big decision she and Michael
had made as parents, and they'd stuck to it. Their story was simple. Michael had helped Greta and Johanna with their luggage when they boarded the ship in 1963. He and Greta quickly fell in love. They were careless, and Greta got pregnant with Julia. When they realized what had happened Greta and Michael moved in together, and Johanna went on to California. They've not regretted it a single day since. If the children wanted more information — too bad. There were things parents didn't have to explain to children. American parents explained everything to their children — why they're angry, why they're hurt, why they make every little itsy-bitsy decision. They explain and explain until the child is satisfied. Greta and Michael had explained only as much as they wanted to explain, and placed the rest firmly off limits. The children had an aunt and an uncle in Ireland and two uncles in Australia. Michael and Greta had emigrated from Ireland and would never go back.

"I can see it's a letter, Eavan. Why was it sent to me at your address?"

"We got in touch with them," James said, more tentative now that he'd seen Greta's reaction. "In Ballyroan. Johanna. Aunt Johanna, I guess. We wrote a letter, and she wrote back. So we wrote another letter to tell her about the party. We thought it might be a good excuse to, you know —"

"Excuse me?" Greta felt as if she were treading air. "I've told you a thousand times about your Aunt Johanna and Uncle Tom. They don't travel. Haven't I told you all of that? They can't leave the farm. And the house is tiny, so they can't have visitors. It's just the two of them there, and they don't have —"

"It's not the two of them, actually," Eavan said. "Johanna is married and has two sons, twenty-five and twenty-three. And Tom is still there. And you know, Mom, we're old enough now to have heard of B and Bs. Inns? Hotels? Come on. Besides, they built a new house more than fifteen years ago. Johanna says they have plenty of room."

"How do you know all of that?"

Eavan nudged the envelope closer to Greta. "We just thought we'd make it easier for you. Don't you think it's time? I mean, this is silly, isn't it? She's your only sister. Our aunt. Those boys are our cousins.
There are flights between Shannon and New York half a dozen times a day. What could have happened that you can't get over?"

"Nothing happened. I've told you. They're busy with the farm, and we're—"

Eavan held up a hand to stop her. "Mom, please."

Johanna with two sons. Greta looked at the curtain and thought, That's a curtain. She looked at the clock and thought, That's a clock. Where had they moved the barn to? Greta wondered. And then: Why would they have moved the barn? Had they put the new house in the place of the old one or built it right alongside?

"So what does all this mean?" Greta asked, picking up the envelope and turning it over in her hands. It was addressed to Mrs. Greta Ward at Eavan's home address. The name on the return address said Mrs. Johanna Rafferty. I don't know any Johanna Rafferty, Greta wanted to say.

"Open it," said James. Outside on the street, a car slowed to a stop, and a moment later two car doors slammed.

"Has Julia been writing to her too?" Greta asked.

"It was a joint effort," James said. "Now open it."

"No," said Greta, and she held the envelope out for him to take. The light coming through the window dimmed and brightened again. She noticed a small drawing on the back flap of the envelope. Blue pen. A constellation. Orion's hunting dogs. Big Tom's nighttime map when the sky was dry enough to see the stars. Without wanting to or trying, Greta pictured the others: Monahan's whaling ship, the fisherman's beard, the donkey's tail. Not one of them real, Greta had learned long ago when Julia was taught about the stars in school. There are no constellations by those names, Julia had informed her plainly. Not in America, Greta had corrected her. Not that you can see from America, maybe, but in Ireland, yes. In Ireland they have the donkey's tail and Monahan's ship and Orion's hunting dogs. Stars were stars, Julia had said, no matter where you're standing. And besides, the constellations were made up anyway. Made up long ago by people who didn't know any better.

"Okay, Ma. Then I'm going to open it for you," James said. And as easily as he might have picked up a book in a bookstore and turned to
the first page, he slid his finger under the flap and ripped it open. He removed the lined page, only one, and unfolded it.

"Here," he said, smoothing it out before he handed it over.

Greta took it without looking at it. "So they'll be here at four? Like the others? All of them? The sons and husband and all?"

"No, just Johanna and Tom," James said. "Julia's at the airport waiting for them as we speak."

Greta turned to find Eavan crying. Big, silent streams ran down her plump cheeks. She dabbed her face with one of the
CON-GRADULATIONS
party napkins Greta had picked up on clearance at the party store, not realizing until James told her that when they spelled it with a
d,
it was for a graduation, not a retirement. A play on words, he'd called it, and Greta had suggested that since there was only one word, it was more of a play on letters.

"We shouldn't have," Eavan said, pressing carefully around her eyes to avoid smearing her makeup. "I knew it, and I went along with it anyway."

"No, you shouldn't have," Greta agreed, and handed her a tissue.

Greta sank back in her chair and tried to absorb what she'd been told. Johanna was in New York, on her way to see them. Julia was picking her up at the airport. There was no meeting at Saks. Greta reached out for the water jug and filled a paper cup with water. She swallowed it in one long gulp and poured another. All the youthful energy she'd felt that morning shriveled, and now, feeling James's and Eavan's eyes on her, she felt far older than fifty-nine.

"You'll be happy, we think," Eavan stuttered. "You know. After."

Greta couldn't think of a single thing to say in response, and she felt she couldn't have responded anyway, her tongue as heavy as it was, her jaw as brittle. She ran her hand along the edge of the table as she stood. She could be back in Ballyroan, blind but ignorant of her blindness, Johanna just a blur bouncing up ahead, telling her to hurry it up, for God's sake hurry it up.

As the walls of her kitchen seemed to expand and contract, Greta's thoughts flew back, way back, to the day Padraic, Jack, and Little Tom had let her and Johanna join in on their game of dare. One by one they'd stood with their backs to the lip of the high sea ledge, the waves
slamming against the rocks far below, and were directed by the others to move back, back, farther back. The challenge was in believing there was enough room behind for yet another step. When it was Greta's turn, she stood at the marked spot and waited for her brothers and sister to instruct her. "You've loads of room," they called as they urged her to take another step, but they couldn't control the wind, pushing her this way and that with no more effort than it took to push the tall grass, to bend it flat on its back. "That's the wind all the way from Canada," one of the boys had called, and another had corrected him: "No, from America."

And when she did fall—fear and dizziness overtaking her—the long journey from standing with her two feet planted on the hard ground to landing on her rear felt for split second like she'd really gone over. When she realized she was safe, she looked over her shoulder to face how close she'd been to death and saw that there were still a good ten feet between her and the edge. They'd been telling her the truth after all, and knowing she'd been safe all along made her feel as if her mother had swooped in and wrapped a blanket tight around her shoulders. She loved them then, felt guilty for not trusting them, for not knowing in her heart that they'd never let her fall.

Of the five of them, the Cahill children, the last family left in Ballyroan—Jack, Padraic, Little Tom, Johanna, and Greta—Johanna was the only one who wouldn't have stopped on her own. Barely bigger than Greta, a full eight years younger than Padraic, she'd taken every step backward as confidently as she'd taken the first. The rest of them had refused the final step, not believing they could back up farther without falling over the edge, except Johanna, who they had to call back.

"That's it," Jack had had to say at the final point. "You're at the edge. Now walk back toward us."

"J
UST A MINUTE
," Greta said. She felt both James and Eavan watching her as she put one foot in front of the other, detected something grainy under her sandal, bent to sweep a few stray crumbs together and then press them against her fingers. When she turned, they were still looking at her—two ruddy faces next to each other, bodies too big for the delicate legs of the chairs they sat on. She brushed her hands over the sink and then started to walk out of the kitchen. The letter still sat on the table, and as she moved away from its neat rows of blue ink, its precise folds, she felt it reproaching her. In those first few years, when Julia was an infant and then a toddler, with Michael and Greta timing their shifts around the baby but never each other, it would occur to Greta what a terrible thing her sister had done, and her fury toward Johanna would become a cold hand that had gotten its numbing fingers around her heart. But as Julia got older and Eavan and James came along, unexpected thoughts began coming to Greta, thoughts that made old furies stumble and fall into a thousand scattered pieces, and no matter how badly Greta wanted to catch them in her arms and put them together again, they would not be reassembled. Strange questions would stop her as she walked down the avenue or reached for her wallet in the grocery store or riffled through the children's clothing racks at Macy's with one of the kids in tow, holding shirts or jeans up against their bodies to gauge their ever-changing
sizes. Who had really done the leaving behind? Who had done what to whom? And when these questions struck her, it felt as if she'd been walking along a pitch-black road, only to have the spotlight switched on at the very spot where there was nowhere to duck and hide. And the spotlight followed her wherever she moved and amplified everything she did. She tried to close her eyes and ignore the feeling, but it was still there, for years it had been there, crouching at the edge of her conscience, just as the letter was still sitting on the table, waving at her as the ceiling fan beat the air overhead.

"Where are you going?" Eavan asked, jumping up to follow close behind.

"Eavan," Greta said simply, walking down the hall and slowly closing her bedroom door on her daughter's bewildered expression, Eavan's two fat cheeks pulled long and taut by her gaping mouth. With her hand tight around the knob, Greta pressed until she heard the click of the bolt. Earlier, after they'd tucked the sheets tight at the corners of the bed and tugged at the quilt until it hung evenly on both sides, Greta had raised the blinds to the highest point and Eavan had opened the windows. Now the room was full of sunlight, full of fresh May air, fragrant with the smell of a neighbor's grass cuttings. After so many years, Greta had gotten used to the noiselessness of the suburbs, the neat and ordered quietness of each house in its place. The sounds Greta did hear were always distant, the next block over or farther away, and it had taken her a long time to stop looking up, looking around, waiting for the noisemaker to appear. Car engines roared. Dogs barked. Lawn mowers coughed and grunted. But rarely on the Wards' block, or so it seemed. Rarely where Greta could look out the window and find the source.